Dell Kicks EMC Off Its Line Card, Turns To Its Own Storage Tech

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Dell on Monday said that it has officially ended its reseller relationship with EMC storage products two years earlier than initially planned, and will instead focus on selling storage products based on its own intellectual property.

The move brings to a close a long-term, mutually-profitable reseller relationship that in its last couple years gradually fractured as Dell and EMC both began expanding their storage product lines with products that competed against each other.

Dell on Monday said it will continue to provide support for customers of its EMC products, including selling capacity upgrades and software titles for existing systems as long as EMC sells such upgrades up to 2016.

However, the company in June said at its Dell Storage Forum that its sales focus into its Dell-EMC customer base will be on Dell-branded products, and that it was committed to building its own solution provider channel.

In September, Dell eventually lost that bid after a short but intense bidding war with Hewlett-Packard which saw the price for 3PAR eventually soar to $2.35 billion. However, by bidding on 3PAR, Dell signaled it was not afraid to compete against EMC.

The final break between the two former partners seemed to have been put in place in January, when EMC introduced its VNX and VNXe SMB storage lines and made it clear that those products were not being sold through Dell.

EMC Chairman, CEO, and President Joe Tucci at the time was blunt when asked by CRN about how EMC plans to work with Dell in terms of the new product family.

"In this product line there is no Dell partnership," Tucci said. "In any conversations we have had with Dell, Dell will not take up this partnership. They will not resell this product."

Actually, there was still some room for Dell, which did sell the VNX, but it did not become a major reseller of the EMC line.

XChange Solution Provider 2015 is finally upon us and the timing couldn't be better. The premier channel event is happening March 1-3 in Dallas, bringing together 225 solution provider decision makers from across North America. CRN is at the event to provide news, analysis and a firsthand take from partners.